Anschutz Exploration Corp. began drilling two natural gas wells at this site in Big Flats, N.Y., in 2010.

Last month’s Environmental Protection Agency draft report on fracking’s impact on U.S. drinking water served up a sound-bite gift to the energy industry for its fight against the spread of state and local fracking bans.

While the 998-page report cited specific instances where gas drilling contaminated water wells, the nation’s headline writers by a wide margin seized on the take-away line from the executive summary: The EPA “did not find evidence” that modern hydraulic fracturing has “led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”

After a horrific winter, Northeast and Midwest boomers are coming in waves to seek warm weather in America’s Southeast. Homes in the cold Northeast and Midwest are being sold and, with cash in hand for many boomers, the search is on for a warm retirement location for their golden years.

Most guides to retirement rank places by cost-of-living, climate, cultural offerings or personal interests. Few offer any information on the environment. So before you decide where to invest, it is important to see how prospective communities have handled everything from massive, Chinese-owned pig farms in North Carolina, decaying H-Bomb plants in South Carolina and Tennessee, or antiquated coal fired power plants in Florida. Realtors and developers do not warn boomers about environmental threats lurking near their dream houses in the sunshine. They are either unaware or simply choose not to discuss these issues with their buyers. Continue reading Boomers’ Environment Guide for Retirement: The Lure of America’s Southeast

After failing to convince Congress to fix the root causes of propane shortages and price spikes that rocked the Midwest and Northeast last winter, the U.S. propane industry is now throwing its full weight behind a secretive underground storage project in western New York. Industry’s renewed support for that private sector option comes after Congress gutted a 2014 bill to scope out and fund regional propane storage sites.

Hundreds gathered on an icy January day in Geneva to protest Crestwood Midstream’s proposed LPG storage project at the other end of Seneca Lake. (Photo: Peter Mantius)

For decades, scientists have puzzled over why Seneca Lake, the largest of New York State’s Finger Lakes, is by far the saltiest of the 11 glacier-carved water bodies.

Now a Nevada hydrologist claims he’s solved the mystery. Tom Myers, who was hired by opponents of a plan to store liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in salt caverns at the southern end of Seneca, pins the blame on LPG storage in the same group of caverns between 1964 and 1984. “The risk of saline influx to the lake from LPG is very high and should be avoided,” Myers wrote in January.

Formed as ice age glaciers retreated only 10,000 years ago, Seneca Lake was named for the westernmost Native American tribe in the Iroquois League. Running north and south, it is nearly 40 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. The state’s deepest lake, Seneca consistently holds 4.2 trillion gallons of water. That’s more than the current 3.6 trillion gallons behind the Hoover Dam in drought-plagued Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir. Continue reading LPG Storage in NY Salt Cavern Linked to Salinity Spike in Drinking Water

Recently Greg Palast wrote about a file he received from the National Security News Service after the 9/11 attacks. It was later included in his book that ended up in Osama bin Laden’s personal library. The following explains how that happened.
A week after 9/11 a FBI agent came to the National Security News Service offices under the guise of me assisting him in contacting David Belfield, an American who had » read more

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Environment

On DCBureau are a story and timeline about the history of the Clean Water Act and the efforts to undermine it. Together they show an incremental, well-funded, organized campaign to weaken the law. On the 40th Anniversary of the Act, it is important to remember that environmental laws enjoyed bipartisan support for years. Weakening environmental regulations through the Congress and courts will have lasting, irreversible results.
Read in The New York » read more

National Security

As the United States still remains poised to launch an attack against Syria, it would be foolhardy for Americans to count on the Pentagon for information about that or any other military operation. The days of reporters being given full access to independently verify Pentagon activities are long over. Instead, the Department of Defense has embraced the idea that it can tell its own story without going through the national » read more